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Bread

To Make French Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, water, salt, ale yeast, butter, eggs, and flour, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Make French Bread

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Make French Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the milk and water; scalding hot in winter, warm in summer.

  2. Stir in the salt and ale yeast until dissolved.

  3. Add the butter and mix until melted.

  4. Beat the eggs in a bowl and stir them into the mixture.

  5. Gradually mix in the flour until the dough reaches the desired consistency.

  6. Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rise while preheating the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Bake and finish

  1. Shape the dough into bricks or loaves and place them in the oven.

  2. After 15 minutes, turn the loaves to the other side and bake for another 15 minutes.

  3. Let the bread cool on a board without covering it, then trim the edges with a knife.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Ale yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Eggs
Add protein and richness, helping the dough set and brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat, softening the crumb and contributing richness and flavor.
Milk
Adds sugars and proteins that enrich the crumb and promote gentle browning.

The step that matters

Cooling the bread uncovered on a board. Bread keeps setting as it cools; covering it early traps steam, which softens the crust and can make the crumb gummy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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